


Come What Will, Come What May

by baku_midnight



Category: The Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: Angst, Canon-Compliant, Canon-Typical Violence, Child Abuse, Drama, Drug Use, Hunting, Incest, M/M, Pre-Canon, Racial slurs, Rape/Non-con Elements, Sibling Incest, Underage - Freeform, and on top of all that, and the dub-con/non-con scene is when they're adults, bad language, discussion of killing animals/hunting, the underage scene is not graphic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-15
Updated: 2014-09-15
Packaged: 2018-02-17 12:15:06
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,589
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2309306
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/baku_midnight/pseuds/baku_midnight
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A timeline of the Dixons' miserable lives pre-apocalypse, delivered in short episodes taking place over the course of their lives. Merle Dixon didn't stand a chance up against the life he was given, but in all the suffering, there was one bright light, if only he could see it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Come What Will, Come What May

**Author's Note:**

> Heed the warnings and tags! In addition to the incest/dub-con elements there is some pretty nasty language up ahead. Merle Dixon is racist and I didn't want to overlook that aspect of his character, even in a story which explores him in a rather sympathetic light. There is an underage scene (Daryl is about 12 when Merle is in his twenties) that isn't graphic or forced, but there is one dub-con/non-con scene later on that is graphic.
> 
> I utterly love these two characters and I am fascinated by the lives, however miserable and dark and unfortunate they must have lived. This story is my imagining of the lives they had, as brothers and kindred spirits, before the apocalypse.

Somewhere high in the Georgia mountains, in a cabin, a woman lies in bed, clutching her newborn baby to her chest, letting him rest calmly in the crook of her arm. She’d cobbled together enough blankets to make a bed: great-grandma’s quilt, mama’s starched sheets, and a whole mess of hand-knit washcloths to make a nest to deliver in. Unlike them spoiled ladies in the city, she’s not afraid to get dirty, and her mama and grandma gave birth on their own terms, in their own homes, so by God, she can too. _Could_ , too, she realizes with sudden clarity, looking at the baby in her arms, her second son, she could and she _did_.

 

The air outside is cool and clean, wind whispering as it whisks through the birches and poplars outside, and there isn’t a sound outside save for the ones that come from nature. It’s a mighty fine day to bring a baby into the world, she decides, and nothing her husband has to say will change the pride she feels having brought forth her second son today.

 

“Whaddya’ll want me to say?” her husband huffs out when he finally comes inside the cabin, plenty of hours and drinks later, “jus’ another mouth to feed.”

 

He doesn’t even look at the baby, keeping his eyes carefully averted to the dark corners of the room, face angled down to the floor, scratching at the back of his neck like a dog with fleas. She shakes her head, knowing there’s no arguing with him. If he’s decided he’s only going to be able to see his children as burdens rather than treasures, there’s not much she can do to change his mind. He’ll have to clue in to the fact that the babies are as much his as they are hers, someday.

 

“Probably be another screw-up, too,” her husband says crudely, casting a pointed look back over his shoulder at the boy standing just behind him. The boy’s face and ears go red but he doesn’t react otherwise, used to the put-downs, as if being called worthless is as familiar to him as his own name. “Ain’t never gonna be a proper man. Spend all his time getting in fights and gettin’ his ass dragged home by the cops.”

 

“Merle’s barely _11_ , he’s a _boy_ , he ain’t no man,” his wife corrects coolly, too tired to argue.

 

“Yeah, and he ain’t ever _gonna_ be one!” the husband answers with a huff and storms out of the cabin without so much as a glance at his new baby.

 

“Merle,” the mother calls to her older son, who is standing off to one side, out of reach of the length of his daddy’s arm. He’s got his hands pressed hard against his sides, looking more like an army recruit than a little boy, fierce blue eyes leaving the floor to look cautiously over at his mother when he hears her, “come on over here, darlin’.”

 

The boy moves hesitantly, like the newborn on the bed is some alien creature come to eat him up. His mother chuckles, “he won’t bite, come on,” and Merle comes up to the side of the bed, eyes trained on the bundle in his mother’s arms.

 

“This is your little brother, Daryl,” she explains, handing the swaddled baby over to her older son, who takes him without hesitation. Not that she gives him any time to think about it, carefully and quickly transferring the bundle in her arms over to his, making sure that he’s holding the baby’s head higher than the rest of his body, then dropping her tired arms to rest on the blanket over her lap. “It’s your job to take care a’ him, alright?”

 

The way she says it it’s like a tease, after all, she’s going be the one doing the caring and Merle’s going to be the one fucking up, that’s just how it goes, he knows it – but Merle takes the message to heart, anything his mama asks, he’ll do it, and looking down at his baby brother, sleeping, helpless, in his arms, he figures he’s up to the challenge.

 

*

 

His brother’s five years old when Merle manages to make him cry. Purposefully, that is. Every single thing he does seems to set the little brat off, anyhow. It’s gettin’ so he can’t even have anything of his own without being expected to share half of it with his baby brother. When mama gets tired it’s up to Merle to babysit, when his little brother needs new shoes or clothes or a ride to school, hell that responsibility falls on Merle, too. No one else is gonna do it, after all, so he’d might as well.

 

“Santa Claus ain’t real!” Merle shouts at Daryl, who’s standing his ground, hands twisted into fists at his sides, lips pressed into a firm white line as he glares up at his older brother. “You see any presents under the tree?! Huh? You think some greasy old man gonna come on by and give you a new bike?”

 

“On TV, it said—” Daryl begins, but his voice cracks miserably, and he clamps his mouth shut again. His blue eyes are welling with tell-tale tears, a tantrum is on its way, and right on time – and good. Merle could use the excuse to get some of his yellin’ out.

 

“I don’t care what you seen on TV! Ain’t no such thing!” Merle argues, heart pounding frantically in his chest. He squeezes forward, corralling his brother into the doorway of the kitchen, fencing him in like a cornered foal, frozen solid in place. Daryl’s brilliant blue eyes – bright as the day he was born – are swimming with tears he refuses to shed, holdin’ ’em back like a man oughta.

 

“Ain’t no one out there gonna bring you presents, just for bein’ you. Ain’t no prize for bein’ you!” Merle shouts, and hears the echoing of his father’s voice at the other end of the cabin, warning him to pipe down. He runs a hand through his short brown hair, feeling the tips slick with sweat – a nervous trigger at the sound of his dad’s voice that just spurs him on. He leans forward so he’s looming over Daryl, from whom tears are now freely flowing, wetting his freckled face.

 

“Anything you want, you gotta go out and get it _yourself_ ,” Merle imparts, pointing at his own chest, “ain’t no one else gonna get it for ya.”

 

Daryl is teary-eyed but he doesn’t make a sound, and turns, wordlessly, and dashes off to his room down the hall. It’s more of a closet than a real bedroom, but it’s enough room for the boy to curl up and hide under the covers like a wood-bug stuffs himself under a rotting log. Merle just rolls his eyes as he hears the door at the far end of the hall shut, and turns on his heel to get to the front door.

 

He ain’t ashamed of what he did; makin’ his brother cry was way less than what he had comin’ to him, what Merle coulda given him. He stomps up and down the hill outside, going no particular direction, until dinnertime.

 

That night, Daryl creeps up into Merle’s room, all skinny limbs and rosy cheeks, the light coming in through the door from dad watching TV down the hall parts around him like the Red Sea, leaving a halo of silvery-white around him. He walks forward, steps quick and firm, and stops in front of where Merle is propped up on one arm, staring at him.

 

“Well, go on then,” Merle says without moving, and Daryl opens the covers and climbs inside, moving in so he’s pressed with his back to Merle’s front snug as a bedbug.

 

He probably had a bad dream and since knocking on mama’s door wouldn’t do any good after she’s finished her bottle, and dad’s probably asleep on the couch, drooling all over the armrest, Daryl turned to his big, strong brother for comfort. Merle wonders if Daryl even tries the other two first, nowadays, or if he’s given up. That night Merle learns what it means to be a family – family’s the ones you come crying back to when you ain’t got nothing else.

 

*

 

When Daryl’s seven years old, they move out of the cabin and into a trailer, closer to town, so that Daryl can get to school easier and be closer to other kids his own age. At the time, he’s too young to understand that his mom’s real motivation is the distance to the liquor store, and his dad’s is how close to the welfare office their new abode is, so as Daryl sees it, he gets to be around other kids that he knows from school, and he’s glad for it.

 

When he’s eight, the trailer burns down, taking mama with it. The trip from the playground by the highway to the trailer park is a blur, Daryl doesn’t even remember how he got there, only remembers it was on his own two feet. When he arrives, there’re firemen in their heavy suits, sheriffs with wide-brimmed hats, and cops milling about, picking at the ashes of his former home like scavengers kicking up dust.

 

One of the cops pulls Daryl aside and asks him if he has anyone to care for him. Daryl doesn’t answer right away, the smoldering coals of his family home smudging his vision, the crackles of the plastic siding and the whirr of the fire engines filling his ears. It’s tempting, really, to say he doesn’t have a daddy, at all, and let the policeman take him where he will. But then, Daryl knows, he’d be taken away from Merle, too, when he got outta juvie, and they’d be put in separate homes, one for big brothers and one for small, and they wouldn’t see each other anymore.

 

So Daryl tells them where his daddy spends his time during the day, and the cops go fetch him and bring him around. Daddy hugs him, but it’s all for show, because the second the crowd in front of their house clears, he slaps Daryl right across the face. Daryl doesn’t say anything, doesn’t even cry all day, figuring he can put if off for tomorrow. But when the next day comes, he doesn’t cry, either. Or the next. After a few months, he’s not sure if he’ll ever cry again.

 

*

 

When Merle runs away from home, he does it proper-like, by ‘emancipating’ himself from his father’s custody. It means he’s got the freedom to get a job and support himself at 17, rather than waiting out the eight months until he turned 18. It also means he becomes a ward of the state, and the state, if they ain’t got anywhere else to keep him, can keep him in juvie ’til he’s 21. Daryl doesn’t really get it, all he knows it that Merle chose juvie over staying with his family, and staying with _him_.

 

One day, waking up after daddy took the belt to him the night before, Daryl gets out of bed to find the cabin – which they moved back in after the fire – empty. No sounds inside or out, no TV playin’, no one frying on the stove. He walks around the cabin, kicking dirty clothes out of his path, then bolts right out the front door.

 

He runs. Runs all day, until he can’t find his way back to the cabin, nor back into town. He sleeps under trees at night and stomps around all day through the understated underbrush, until he realizes he’s been away from home at least three days.

 

Surely daddy’s lookin’ for him by now, if not the sheriffs. They were experts at lookin’ for little boys lost in the woods, if the news that dad made ’em watch was anything to go by. “That could be you, out there,” his dad would say, less a warning than a _threat_ , pointing to the portrait of the missing child on the TV screen, “if y’ don’t smarten up.” Daryl sits curled up next to a tree, dreadfully hungry, and waits to be found, for a whole other day and night.

 

When he realizes no one’s comin’ for him, he tries to remember everything Merle had taught him about tracking. How the sun went from one side of the sky to the other, so it was no good trying to follow it, but better to keep it on your back. How to check if he’d stepped there before by looking if the leaves on the ground were crumpled, and how to leave markers for himself by scratching the trees with a knife. Didn’t have no knife so he ripped the bark off with his nails, and kept walking.

 

“Don’t you let yourself die of thirst, y’hear?” Daryl remembers Merle’s voice in his head, “keep the river next to ye’ so you don’t forget to drink.” Daryl keeps the creek on his right and walks all day long, collapsing under tree roots at night.

 

“Don’t you die like a dog, if you see danger, you run,” Merle told him, long ago, “ain’t no shame in running when you’re out-matched.” The only danger Daryl faced out there was hunger and thirst, so he ran from it, ran alongside the creek all day long until the cabin came back into view and he stepped inside the back door, went through the empty kitchen, and made himself a sandwich.

 

*

 

When Merle finally gets out of juvie, he has nowhere to go but back home. They took his trailer and closed his bank account while he was behind bars, his old job at the garage wouldn’t take him back, and he had no friends to speak of, so his only refuge was the one place he never wanted to see again.

 

As he skids into what passes for a driveway on his bike, the cabin coming into view in front of him, it looks a lot less oppressive and more…pathetic than he remembers. What was his childhood prison, looming and fortified, looks small, all tucked back in the trees, which had dripped their leaves all over its crown, filled its gutters with layers and layers of yellow and green.

 

When he gets inside, empty-handed, bringing nothing with him but the clothes on his back, it’s Daryl, not his dad, who comes out to greet him. The boy, now a teen starting the deadly ascent into adulthood, leaps forward and wraps his arms around Merle’s waist before Merle can stop him.

 

“How’s it hangin’, baby brother?” Merle asks, peeling his little brother off of him, heart instantly softened just by his presence. Daryl looks straight at the ground, attempting to compose himself, tears in his eyes almost as a force of habit.

 

“Dad around?” Merle asks and Daryl instantly goes stiff. He was always the sweetheart of the family, mama treated him like the sun shone out his ass and dad hardly ever raised a hand to him, though he did raise his voice plenty.

 

Daryl shook his head. “No.”

 

That night, they eat pork and beans heated up on the stove, and sit around the fire pit in the yard, just for the sake of being outdoors in the fresh air. Merle breathes deep the smoky, sooty, cold air, feeling comfortable for the first time in a long time.

 

“What’s juvie like?” Daryl asks cautiously, taking a swig of his orange soda, the last bottle he was saving for a special occasion. His face is darkened by the night sky and lit up by the embers of the fire, leaning forward in his lawn chair to poke at the logs with a blackened poker.

 

“Oh, it’s wonderful. You get to read books all day and carve shivs out of plastic spoons all night. Then, just when you’re feeling bored, some guy will come on in to your room and start beating the shit out of you for no reason,” Merle drawls, leaning back in his chair, the creaking of the rusty metal meeting him as he slumps against it.

 

“Really?” Daryl asks slowly, and Merle huffs.

 

“Naw. He had a good reason. I’d been wipin’ my ass with his doo-rag the last few weeks and he’d only just found out,” Merle jokes, casting a glance over at Daryl. His brother looks utterly scandalized, like that’s the most horrific thing he’s ever heard, and Merle laughs. He laughs, and laughs, so hard and long he thinks he might have a heart attack and die, all stiff and rickety like those old men, until he’s out of wind and tears are streaming down his cheeks.

 

Daryl is looking down at this thumbs, his soda barely touched, nursing along every drop. He looks shy, suddenly, around this big stranger in his home, and Merle sighs.

 

“Why don’tchu go get me another beer, huh?” Merle prompts with a tip of his chin in Daryl’s direction. The boy gets up and hurries inside, coming back with an ice-cold bottle, popping the top off on the edge of the barbeque as he passes by it. He hands it to Merle, and Merle doesn’t extend his arm, forcing Daryl to lean in close, close enough to grab.

 

Merle snatches his wrist and pulls Daryl in and kisses him, one hand around the back of his head so he can’t jump away. Just kisses him, a firm press of lips against his brother’s soft mouth, then pulls away with a smacking sound. He’s not sure why he does it, only that it feels like the right thing to do, right then.

 

They separate, just enough so that their noses still touch, and Merle roughs a hand up through Daryl’s messy dirty-blond hair. Daryl hovers there a moment, standing between his big brother’s legs, then, to Merle’s astonishment, leans in again.

 

Daryl presses forward with a kiss of his own, climbing up onto the lawn chair as he goes, one knee on either side of Merle’s lap, his hands on Merle’s thick shoulders. He kisses softly, gently, but willingly, pink lips wet with spit when Merle coaxes them open with his tongue, sliding sideways along the seam, slipping just the tip inside. Merle shoves the beer bottle down in the dirt, twisting it so it stands and then runs his hands up and down Daryl’s sides, rough drag of calloused hands rucking up his t-shirt, smoothing down his skin. He starts to pull Daryl down by the hips, bring them together, but when the hard lump in his jeans grazes Daryl’s backside, the boy falters, and stops.

 

Merle lets Daryl climb out of his lap without a word and walk back across to his chair. He palms his dick lazily with one hand and runs the other through his freshly-shaved hair, the prickle of the bristles a nice counterpoint to the soft give of his baby brother’s skin… _What was he thinking?_ Merle pushes out a sigh, breath shaky, and reaches down for his beer, finding he doesn’t even want it anymore.

 

Daryl is looking back at him, sheepish, toes turned in and hands over his lap. He’s probably too young to even know what’s happening to him down there, Merle realizes with a sick feeling in his gut. Maybe he’s never even touched himself, by _God,_ what has he _done?_

 

The boy excuses himself wordlessly, brushing his hands up and down his arms like the cold air is getting to him, and then disappears inside the house.

 

Merle sits outside for a long while, feeling a mix of sick and pathetic and lonely and _angry_ as he stews in what he did. He makes it a habit not to regret anything, but that, what he just done? That’s the closest he’d come to regretting something, ever in his whole life.

 

But kissing his little brother felt…good. It felt right, real, and good, even when his mind was telling him no, his body was goading him on, pushing him forward, with a feeling like an electric shock running all up and down his spine as he touched his brother’s skin. Daryl had been the only person in his life to ever look at him like he wasn’t all good-for-nothing, fuck-up trash, and he’d probably gone and screwed that up now, too. He’d be lucky if Daryl ever looked at him with admiration in his eyes again, if he looked at him at all.

 

Hours later, so late the moon is sunk all the way down past the mountains, Merle turns in, pulling himself up onto his bed, on top of the covers, letting the cool night air comin’ in from the open screen doors and windows settle in his bones, make him heavy like an iceberg. He lies back with an arm pillowing his head and stares up through the skylight, at the star-freckled sky above him.

 

He hears a shuffling in the hall outside and stares in shock as Daryl walks into his room, crossing the floor and standing just in front of him, like he always did when he was a kid. He stands, stock-still, until Merle lets out, voice creaky and laced with something that might just be _tears,_

 

“Well, go on then,” and Daryl climbs into bed with him.

 

But they don’t sleep. Daryl didn’t have a nightmare, he isn’t a child no more, he’s still a boy, but he’s got different needs. He leans against Merle’s chest, the two of them on their sides, lifting his head, slowly, so slowly, an inch at a time, every second making Merle’s heart slam harder against his ribs, and kisses him, soft and sweet. Merle lets out a moan and pushes forward, he can’t help it, and wraps a big hand around Daryl’s head, holding him in place while he forces his tongue inside Daryl’s mouth. He laps at every little inch of his mouth, rolling his tongue around Daryl’s, licking back at his molars, sucking out his taste.

 

Daryl is pliant, oh-so willing to take what affection Merle offers, desperate for the tender touch of another human being he’s been denied so long. He lets out these tiny little whimpers and sighs, mouth open for Merle’s seeking tongue, hands curling and uncurling in the front of his brother’s shirt.

 

Merle reaches down and presses the back of his knuckles into Daryl’s groin and the boy goes stiff again, but doesn’t pull away. His breathing starts to pick up, harder and faster, until Merle’s worried he’ll pass out or something and pulls away, stroking his thumb gently down Daryl’s cheek.

 

“It’s alright, you just relax, let it go, I gotcha,” Merle mumbles, palming frantically at Daryl’s clothed erection, feeling how hard and ready he is for his _brother_ through his jeans. He rubs in a circle, stroking up and down, then shoots his other hand down between his own legs and pulls at himself, rubbing them both off together until they spill in their pants, choking on air. Daryl whimpers and hides his face in Merle’s shoulder while Merle pants and tries to come down in a dignified fashion, given that he just rubbed off his little brother and came so fast doing it himself that he almost passed out.

 

They spend the next few days like that, kissing, touching each other, but mostly just making out. Daryl likes kissing the most, and seems to want to improve on his technique, often initiating kisses, closing his lips over Merle’s tongue and sucking, chuckling to himself at the desperate reaction that brings. More often though, Merle initiates things, even in broad daylight, his grip on the back of Daryl’s neck leading him into a kiss, smacking him right on the lips even in the middle of the day.

 

Neither of them says a word about it, it’s just what they do now. Words would make things complicated, and this…is about the easiest thing Merle has done in a while. Easy now, at least. Merle doesn’t want to think about how things will get on in the future, when they’re older, and hopes, honestly, that they’ll be over this by then. They spend nearly two weeks like that, days bleeding into nights where they explore one another’s bodies, until dad finally shows up and throws a shit-fit over Merle being around, screaming and throwing trash, threatening all sorts of bodily harm until his eldest son is gone again.

 

*

 

Daddy gets tired of teaching Daryl how to hunt about the time he’s nine years old and mama dies. He gets tired of talking, really, spending more and more time in his shack drinking with his asshole friends. Daryl doesn’t mind when he’s out there, because he’s happy out there, and when he’s happy, he ain’t up for hittin’.

 

What he did teach sticks hard in Daryl’s mind: how to spot animal tracks when the ground is dried out and dusty, how to aim a rifle and how to shoot, how to butcher a white-tail proper-like. He keeps studying for himself so he can show Merle what he’s learned when he’s back around, spending his weekends and summers out in the woods, traipsing through the underbrush with a rifle over his shoulder. Out in the woods, no one bothers him, or asks him how much money his daddy makes. No one badgers him about what he wants to be when he grows up.

 

When Merle’s home again – and daddy is out of town for sure, this time – Daryl is ready to show off his skills. They go out in the woods, Merle with a bottle of Jack Daniels in one hand and a rifle in the other, Daryl with his gun held diligently in the crook of his arm, and track down a deer for dinner.

 

It’s a good-sized buck, at least 150 pounds, Daryl estimates proudly, following the swath of crumpled underbrush the beast leaves in the woods. He casts the occasional look over his shoulder to see Merle still following him, disinterestedly looking around the woods, taking large gulps from his bottle.

 

When they get up on the deer, Daryl makes a hissing sound to indicate they halt, and Merle does so with a huff. Daryl lines up his shot, the deer plain in his sights, but not the rattlesnake crawling out of the brush beneath him.

 

Merle shoves him out of the way with a firm hand on his shoulder, and stomps down hard on the rattlesnake’s head just before it’s about to strike. He stomps down again for good measure, rearing up with a war cry, bottle dropped and booze seeping into the forest floor. He kicks the crippled reptile across the clearing, only ceasing his attack when it’s well out of sight.

 

“What the _Hell_ was that?!” Merle roars, storming over to where his little brother is seated in the leaves, stunned still, resting heavily on his hands behind him. He bends double and grabs Daryl’s chin, shaking his head back and forth and screaming in his face, “you got some kinda _death wish_ , boy?!”

 

Daryl is too shocked to move, so Merle takes away the option, kicking the boy hard in the ribs, sending him tumbling sideways. He rolls out of the way just as Merle’s readying another kick, knocking his rifle aside and getting up to his knees, just in time for a blow to the face.

 

“You dumb _fuck!_ You coulda got yourself killed! What you think you’re _doing_ out here? This ain’t no game!” Merle rambles between blows, landing a few good socks to the side of Daryl’s head until the boy manages to leap out of the way. The teen scrambles up to his feet and lunges at Merle’s waist, trying in vain to push him over, sending him stumbling back a few steps while Daryl growls and squeezes with all his might.

 

Daryl ducks his head and chomps down on Merle’s thigh, crunching the flesh through the stiff fabric of his jeans, making his big brother howl in pain. He grabs Daryl by the hair, rambling and screaming as he throws the kid back.

 

“What’d you’ve done if I weren’t here, boy?” Merle shouts, “what’d you’ve done if you were alone, huh? You’d be dead!” He gets close to the boy seated on the forest floor, blood out of his nose and split lip, before Daryl kicks him hard in the shins and knees, throwing his legs out from under him.

 

Merle crumples, falling hard on his ass with an angry yell, and Daryl climbs up on top of him, getting in a swift punch to Merle’s jaw before Merle catches his wrists and flings him across the forest carpet.

 

“Maybe if you were around more, I wouldn’t hafta worry about being alone!!” Daryl screams, sweat dripping down his temples and face red with rage.

 

“I don’t need you!!” Daryl cries as he’s getting up, and scrambling out of the clearing, stumbling on shaky legs, “You ain’t _shit!_ I done just fine without you!!”

 

“You ain’t shit without me!” Merle calls back, the trees swimming across his eyes, the alcohol making him loopy and angry. “You ain’t _nothin’_ without me!” he cries to empty forest, his brother’s narrow back gone from view.

 

*

 

When he’s 26, Merle gets caught with 18 pounds of cocaine in the trunk of his car driving down the interstate and the cops tell him he’s got three options: join the army, become an informant for an even bigger bust they got planned, or get locked away for a long time. He sure as Hell ain’t no squealer, and he tells the cops as such as they get him fitted for his military uniform.

 

Before departing, he comes home to the cabin with a military-issue pack slung over his back, boots heavy, but his heart light. The army’s about the safest place for him he can think of, and while he’d rather have made the choice of his own volition, he knows it would’ve come down to it sooner or later.

 

When he tells Daryl, the boy doesn’t take the news very well. A gangly 15 years old, with dirty blond bangs covering his eyes, he stands in the doorway and practically stomps his feet with anger.

 

“But you just got here!” Daryl moans, slamming the side of his fist into Merle’s chest when his brother tries to embrace him one-handed.

 

“Whoa, whoa! Hold on now, Sylvester Stallone!” Merle laughs. The puffy black eye his brother’s sporting makes the comparison all the more accurate. He chuckles at the way his brother squirms and fights against him, all limbs and fire, no bite. Daryl’s thin lips form a snarl as he shoves both hands against Merle’s chest, easily overpowered by his brother’s crushing grip. “I’m here for the night, don’t you worry.”

 

Daryl is unconvinced, and starts to sniffle. He always was such a whiny kid. Won him plenty of sympathy from their dad, saved him from the beatings, that’s for sure. Merle watches as tears form and spill over his brother’s high cheekbones.

 

“What’re you, some army-wife, waiting for her big, strong, maverick husband to come home? Worrying over her knitting, twiddling her little thumbs?” Merle teases, stroking his thumb across under one eyelid, wiping the tears away.

 

“Ain’t no one’s _wife_ ,” Daryl huffs, voice creaky.

 

“Yeah, well, you sure cry like one,” Merle answers, arm around his brother’s shoulders, and leads him in through the door.

 

“Don’t worry, I’ll stick around a little while,” Merle says quietly when they’re inside, confidently, as if he’s telling a secret. Daryl sniffles and rubs the heel of his hand into his eye.

 

Being in the cabin again is so surreal, Merle isn’t even sure he’s really there. He spent so much time trying to forget everything about this place, but his body still remembers every square inch. He avoids the creaky spots of the floor as he walks, and turns automatically into his old room, to find the bed piled up with boxes and bottles and every other kind of junk that oughta be in proper storage. He shoves it all off onto the floor, and replaces it with his duffle-bag.

 

Daryl is there in minutes, in his bed. They make love, for real, proper, that night, Daryl sighing into his brother’s neck, content like there weren’t no place he’d rather be. Merle’s always been partial to fucking, banging, knocking boots, but making love is the only way to describe what they do that night. It’s like a ceremony, the way they hold each other, a welcome as much as it is a goodbye, and Merle makes the decision right then, that this’ll be the last time.

 

*

 

Merle takes to army life like a pig in shit. Everything is organized, they get three square meals a day and their own beds. Recruits do their own laundry and take care of their own shit. No one asks him questions about who he is or where he came from, and if someone does, he socks ’em good, and they call it “combat training”. Really, if he’d known this is what the army’d be like, he’da joined _years_ ago.

 

In the army, everyone does what they’re told, which Merle appreciates, but unfortunately, it means the man himself is no exception.

 

One of the colonels really starts getting under Merle’s skin, and on purpose, too – calling him names and treating him way shittier than he does anyone else. He calls Merle redneck, _freak_ , roid-raging, junkie fuck, inbred, _sister-humping_ – the last one really makes Merle see red, despite himself – and gets away with it, too. To make things worse, he’s some kinda kike or something, ain’t even true blood, and Merle could forgive that, probably, if the man weren’t so _weak_. He’s gotta be less than Merle’s height by about six inches, and 50 pounds lighter, yet he’s Merle’s superior and that just don’t sit well with him. The day Merle stopped listening to his daddy was the day he outgrew him; he ain’t about to listen to this google-eyed, curl-haired bitch one more second, even if he is his superior officer, Merle decides, and that’s when he strikes.

 

And that’s that. Merle’s military career is over, just like that. He barely finished one tour in Afghanistan. He gets 16 months in prison, which ends up overtaking the 4 years he spent in the army by a long shot, at least in how it feels to him. The only compensation is the fact that he’s got a hefty sum waiting for him when he gets out; even a dishonorable pension is more money than his daddy’d ever seen in his sad little life.

 

Even the thirty years of shit Merle went through up to this point didn’t prepare him for prison. Ex-military don’t get no love in jail; the only thing keeping his ass safe is probably his size, which Merle is suddenly, irrationally grateful for. He spends every day pumping his guns so he can get even bigger and scarier, to deter folks from pissin’ him off best he can. He joins the skinheads, because what else is he gonna do. He lies on his prison cot and stares up at the bland cement ceiling, trying to remember to count on that glorious pension waiting for him outside these barred windows.

 

*

 

Daryl doesn’t finish high school. The kids all know he’s poor and stupid, so to prove ’em right, he flunks every class. The kids say he ain’t gonna show up, so he doesn’t. He skips and skips class until one of his teachers finally asks him what the matter is, and at that point, he doesn’t know where to begin. She promises that she’ll find a way to let him pass, he only needs two credits in senior year it’ll be a cakewalk, come on – but he can see the pity and doubt in her eyes. She knows full well he ain’t coming back around for twelfth grade, and she’ll be relieved to see him gone.

 

Dad whips the shit out of him when he finds out, despite never having finished school himself, neither. Daryl doesn’t think he has the right to complain, but he does have the right to punish. Merle told him so, told him it was a dad’s right to discipline his young’uns if they’re outta line, don’t matter how he do it, and it’s the kid’s duty to take it. Daryl thinks if Merle really believed that, he’d be here, rather than off on his own.

 

Daryl’s seventeen years turn into 19, 21, 24… he doesn’t even know why he keeps track, it’s all the same, just a different number on the calendar. He dates girls but they leave when they realize he ain’t gonna fuck ’em, just likes someone to have to drink with when nights get cold. His only friends are the guys who will turn on him the second they get caught, and Daryl knows as much, but sticks around just the same. It’s better than nothin’.

 

The only thing keeping him on his feet is the advice his brother gave him, delivered in small sermons and dark lessons over his many years, during the short periods when he was around. “ _Don’t let folks see you cry. Don’t be a chicken-shit pussy-ass bitch. Don’t let the cops push you around, know your rights and ask for an arrest warrant. Don’t associate with kikes or niggers or queers, they don’t speak our language, they don’t know the world like we do. Take care of yourself, ain’t no one else gonna do it for you._ Survive, _however you can, little brother. There ain’t no shame in wanting to survive.”_

 

Half of the advice Merle gave he didn’t even follow himself, and Daryl decides he’s gonna kick his teeth in when he sees the guy again.

 

He practices with his crossbow on the tin cans hung out back of the cabin. He takes his father’s blows until he’s 21 and the old man leaves home for good. He catches food for himself and keeps collecting his dad’s welfare check to buy beer with. He fucks his hand with two fingers shoved up his ass, and imagines it’s his brother’s fingers, his brother’s hard, warm body pressed up against his in the dark, his gentle cooing voice whispering in his ear, _“it’s alright, just relax, let it go, I gotcha. I gotcha.”_

 

*

 

When Merle gets out of prison, he takes his pension and buys a house and a whole lot of booze. It’s wonderfully easy to get a hold of painkillers and psychedelic drugs – he just says he’s got PTSD, anxiety, OCD, trauma he just can’t handle from his years in the army, and the doctor writes him all the prescriptions he wants. He’s got enough cash to supplement the lot with meth. The house is old, maybe a hundred years plus, basically falling to pieces right before his eyes, an apt metaphor for the life he’s lived. But the drugs, they’re quality, and with enough of them, he gets thinking the house is alright. _Better_ than alright. It’s _damn fine._

 

Next thing he does is come by and scoop up his little brother, and his motorcycle. They move into the house but it doesn’t sit right, looking up at the same ceiling every night, and after a couple days they board up the door, take their cash, and go on a hunting trip that never really ends.

 

Daryl’s camping gear and survival stuff becomes _theirs_ , and Merle’s money and truck and motorcycle belong to both of them, now. Everything Merle ever owned was half his brother’s anyway: maybe the husband and wife metaphor really does ring true. When he thinks about it, Merle can’t think of someone else he’d be able to spend his whole life with, anyhow. He tries not to think on it too hard.

 

They get the tent up and build camp not two miles outside of town, in a copse of thin, white-barked trees and stringy vines. The leaves shudder above them as they work, wordless, tireless, to set up the tent, set the fire, and camp like it’s not the first time they’ve done it in twelve years.

 

They sit up in fold-out chairs, drinking amicably by the fire. Daryl wants to hear about Merle’s time in the army but he doesn’t want to talk about it, instead grousing dramatically about how everyone else wronged him and brought him down for no reason. Daryl knows the truth is Merle probably deserved all the lumps he got, but doesn’t say anything, he’s just happy to have his brother around.

 

His big brother has changed. He was never sweet and fluffy before, but now he’s even harder than he was as a young man. His muscles are bigger, Daryl notices, looking up and down his brother’s thick body. The muscles concealed under his ratty shirt are clearly defined, pecs bulging out the sides of the straps, abdomen stretching the fabric as his breath swells the muscles of his stomach. But his arms – his arms are _massive,_ years of doing push-ups at boot-camp and plenty of time in the prison yard are the things responsible, Daryl imagines. He wonders if his own arms will ever be that toned, if he’ll ever be as strong as his brother.

 

And his face… Merle’s face holds a darkness that never seems to disappear in the light. The lines in his face are deeper, harsher, they make him look like he’s cracking apart, but the darkness that surrounds him sticks on, like gooey crude oil, thick smog. Daryl has always been intimidated, not scared, of his brother, especially now, while he sits staring at the fire with a dark, unblinking look in his eyes, Daryl feels a chill run all the way up his spine and settle somewhere at the base of his neck.

 

He remembers how Merle’s hand used to feel at the base of his neck. Warm, solid, firm, when they used to kiss and rub each other off. How Merle’s hands used to lead him, _guide_ him through the pleasure he sought, make him feel more alive than anything else ever did.

 

Merle slumps back in his chair, looking disinterestedly at the fire, and Daryl gets to his feet. He ain’t gonna talk, fine. They don’t need t’ talk.

 

Daryl shuffles over and climbs right up in Merle’s lap, planting a knee on either side of Merle’s thighs, and his arms around Merle’s shoulders. He grins a wicked little grin, pressing down gently against Merle’s legs, grinding his ass against Merle’s lap.

 

“What the Hell is this?” Merle annunciates, enraged, gripping the sides of the fold-out chair so hard the fabric screeches under his fingernails. “Whatchu playin’ at, boy?”

 

Daryl circles his hips playfully, grinding himself against Merle’s lap, hoping to make it clear how hard he is. “What’s it look like?”

 

“You ain’t a kid no more,” Merle answers immediately, turning his head away in disgust. Daryl simply leans harder into him.

 

“What? So it’s okay for me to want it when I’m little, but I can’t now that I’m grown?” Daryl asks, “I ain’t cute no more?”

 

Merle grits his teeth so hard he swears he feels them crack. No, this ain’t right. Playing around as kids was one thing, but it’s serious now, they’re big, now, they’re adults. It’s not playtime anymore.

 

“Nothing cute about this,” Merle grits out, and pushes Daryl unceremoniously from his lap and gets up to leave. Daryl stumbles to his feet, narrowly avoiding the campfire, and brushes himself off, rightly embarrassed. He doesn’t know what happened. All he knows is the only man he’s ever loved just tossed him away like a used condom.

 

“So, what?!” Daryl shouts at his brother’s retreating back, “it’s okay to make me want it when I was a little kid and didn’t know no better, but _now_ , now that I’m making the choice _myself_ , it’s no good?!”

 

The younger brother puffs out an astonished breath as Merle doesn’t even stop to make a smart-ass remark. Call him queer, call him a pussy, whatever – Daryl would take anything over abstinence right now.

 

“D’you only want me when I was a kid? Am I no good to you now?” Daryl asks softly, “too big for you now? Not cute no more?”

 

Merle tightens his hands into fists, the only evidence that he’s even listening. Daryl expects a fight, and he’ll take it – he’d rather Merle whoop his ass than carry on with his wretched silence.

 

“Or did you never want me at all? You were just foolin’ me,” Daryl comprehends sadly, lifting his hands and dropping them against his sides in defeat. There’s nothing more to it. It was all another trick, just like Merle’s promise that he’d stick around. He doesn’t know why he even came on his trip in the first place.

 

Suddenly, Merle lets out a growl like a wild animal, planting his heel in the dirt and turning, charging Daryl with a strangled war-cry. He grabs Daryl’s arm and twists it behind his back, shoving him down into the dirt on his knees, face-first.

 

“You want me to show you how grown-ups do it?!” Merle barks out, slamming Daryl’s head into the ground with his free hand, twisting his wrist behind his back with the other. He drops to his knees behind Daryl and grinds up against his backside.

 

“Down on the ground, fucked like a dog, that what you want?! Huh?!” Merle shouts in Daryl’s ear and grinds up hard against his prone ass, raised at just the right angle to drive up _hard_ against him. Daryl groans and jerks forward in the dirt, using his free arm to try to push himself up, his entire body giving a twitch when Merle rams up against him again, shoving him down into the ground.

 

“ _This_ is how adults do it,” Merle hisses out, desperately trying _not_ to think about all the guys he fucked in prison that looked like his baby brother – the one that had the same shoulders, the one who had the same mouth, the kid with the same messy hair – he grinds in deep, planting his knees in the dirt and pushing _hard_ , moving Daryl’s whole body with the force of his thrusts. “You want it like this, huh?”

 

Merle reaches a hand under the hem of Daryl’s shirt and he scrambles his hand back in a panic, leaning on his shoulders and reaching out for Merle’s wrist to stop him. “No, no…” he pants, sweat dribbling off of his hair and into his eyes, flinching as Merle slams into him again for good measure. “I do! I do…want it, just… _Merle_ …I can’t—” he struggles for words, squeezing his eyes shut as every pantomime thrust rocks his body. He lifts his hips, helplessly, up towards Merle’s, hoping for some sort of relief, horrified when Merle pulls away entirely.

 

“Come on!” Merle stomps to his feet and grabs Daryl’s arm, squeezing hard enough to leave bruises, and Daryl stumbles hopelessly towards the tent.

 

“Wait! Merle!” he cries, yelping in pain as Merle swings him around and slams him down on the sleeping bag that makes his bed. Daryl moans and rolls over to his side, cradling his aching arm, gasping as Merle grabs his hand and flings it aside, shoving Daryl over onto his back.

 

Merle snatches Daryl’s belt and pulls hard, getting it lose and ripping his pants down his legs. He wrenches them all the way off while Daryl cries and reaches helplessly for his hands, Merle’s huge palm on his chest pushing him back down into the floor. Daryl whines, unable to turn away from the sight of his own hard cock revealed in front of him, smacking against his belly like an insult.

 

“Please, _please_ Merle,” Daryl moans, staring imploringly at Merle’s dark, rage-filled eyes. He wants it, _God,_ he truly does, but it’s too much, too fast, _way_ too fast…he’s regretting spurring his brother on as he watches the man grit his teeth and wrench his naked legs open, lifting them up onto his lap, hooking an ankle around either side of his hips.

 

Merle grips Daryl’s cock, just this side of too tight, pumping the shaft a few times while Daryl hollers and squeezes his eyes shut. “This what you want, huh? Show you how grown-ups do it,” he rambles, spits on his fingers, and shoves two inside Daryl’s body.

 

Daryl moans and throws back his head, giving a sorrowful cry as Merle jabs the two fingers inside him, fucking them in and out, scissoring them apart. The pressure of the thick digits inside him makes him go stiff, the pain wilting his erection while his body jerks away from the touch.

 

Merle withdraws, grumbling to himself and reaching across his bed to the night bag in the corner, rifling through it one handed with the other one on the inside of Daryl’s thigh, holding him open. The cold air filtering through the open tent door tickles sensitive exposed skin and Daryl flinches, hearing the rustling of Merle’s hand beside his head.

 

Merle finds the lotion he was looking for and squirts a dollop into his hand, working the cream around with delirious intent before plunging his fingers back in. Daryl screams as they probe deep, the lotion slicking the way and eliminating any resistance his body might’ve put up. It feels totally different with the lube, the fingers inside him squelch back and forth easily and Daryl moans, twisting his arm up over his head and gripping the pillow, his back arched, all white skin and lean muscle in a pale arc, as the fingers fuck in and out of his body.

 

Suddenly, the fingers hit something that has Daryl seeing stars and throwing his head back so hard he’s sure he fainted. When the light comes back to his eyes he whines, pleading, begging his brother, as his fingers jab relentlessly at that one spot.

 

“Stop—’s too much,” Daryl groans, and in response Merle adds a third finger. The added stretch is exhausting but with the slick easing the way, there’s no escape from the brutal assault of the thick fingers. He pants, voice going high and panicky as Merle scrapes away at his insides, finger-fucking him relentlessly.

 

Daryl moans, his limp dick trying desperately to rise again but the pain is too much, until Merle pulls away entirely, wiping his fingers on the blanket beside him and watching Daryl appraisingly. His chest is heaving, still covered by his ever-present vest, a look of pleasure and terror on his face. Sweat dribbles down the tips of his messy hair, coating his flushed face with a sheen of gold. He startles and his voice jumps up an octave, moans and pants turning high and reedy as Merle grips his cock and works it lazily to hardness, thumbing the tip and pushing Daryl just right to the edge of relaxed/panicked.

 

Daryl hears Merle’s jeans unzip and looks down to see the monster of a cock he pulls out of his briefs, backing away in horror as it looms over him. “Merle, no—” Daryl shakes his head as Merle lines up his cock with Daryl’s and strokes the two of them together, rough, hard strokes, mostly for show. Since when was he so big? There’s _no_ _way_ that’s going to fit inside him, Daryl thinks miserably, trying to pull his hips away. But Merle holds him fast against his lap.

 

“You want this, don’tcha, sweetheart?” Merle groans, “drive this right up your asshole ’til it comes out your mouth.” His mouth is filthier than usual, and the dark look on his shadowed brow doesn’t help make him look any less frightening. Daryl doesn’t know what happened to his big brother; the person looming over him is like a stranger.

 

“No… _yes!_ I want it! But ’mnot ready,” Daryl moans, panting, pressing his hands down into the covers to keep them from flying up to his hips.

 

Merle leads the head of his cock down, drawing a streak of precum down the length of Daryl’s shaft, then lines up with his hole. Daryl screams and flails his arms downward, landing on Merle’s stomach to try and push him off, as he shoves the whole of his hard shaft relentlessly inside him.

 

Daryl goes still, hands pressed to Merle’s abdomen and face turned into the pillow. He pants helplessly against the intrusion, trying to get his body to accommodate the massive shaft inside him, relaxing his legs and letting them fall wider apart. The pressure is unlike anything he’s ever felt, so big, so _full_ … there’s no escaping the thing inside him, all he can do is lie still and try to accept it.

 

“Oh God,” Daryl breathes out, “hoo…” he can barely handle what’s happening, being so intimately connected to his brother, like they’re sharing the same body. He groans and shifts his hips a little to try and gage how deep inside Merle is, and he feels the brush of curly hair against his ass. Merle circles his fingers around Daryl’s ankles and pushes them up, getting him at just the right angle, then fucks in deep.

 

Daryl’s screams echo about the woods, heard only by squirrels and owls, as his brother fucks him mercilessly. He wants to enjoy it, wants to feel his brother’s affection like he did when they were young, and Merle’s strong hands and patient voice coaxed pleasure from him, made him feel wanted, and protected. He pants out hard and tries to relax his muscles against the intrusion inside his body, letting his legs fall limp in Merle’s grip.

 

Merle hooks one of Daryl’s ankles over his shoulder, using his free hand to grab Daryl’s half-limp dick and coax it back to hardness with brutal, timed strokes to match his thrusting inside. Daryl flinches and reaches blindly down, landing on Merle’s fist and feeling his own cock pump in and out of the circle of his brother’s hand, slicked by his juices. The feeling is just too _real_ , too much, slick and wet and unimaginably _hard_ , he fondles the head helplessly, mindlessly, his palm connecting with Merle’s fingers on every upstroke and then, suddenly, Merle pegs that sensitive, shooting-star spot inside him and Daryl screams.

 

“Ah, ah, _aaah!_ ” Daryl groans out, words failing him, shoving his head back into the pillow, neck arched and mouth wide open around his cries of pleasure and pain. It still hurts, hurts like nothing he’s ever felt, the cock plugging away inside of him stretching him well beyond what he can take, but it the searing, blinding pleasure sluices a bit of the burn, and for a moment all he can focus on is the incredible, scorching ecstasy of their bodies aligning just right.

 

Daryl’s panting goes high and coarse and awkward as he approaches his peak and Merle drives in harder, hips slamming relentlessly against Daryl’s ass, slapping sounds echoing across the camp. He tilts his hips to just the right angle and _pounds_ in, faster and wilder and doesn’t stop until Daryl’s coming with a wild cry, twisting his head back and forth against the pillow, fisting great handfuls of fabric at his sides, fingers digging in so hard the fibres tear.

 

Daryl’s muscles clench down tight around him and Merle flinches but doesn’t stop fucking him through it, his brother’s legs dropping limply around him while he pounds in hard, harder still, not stopping when Daryl’s nails scrape at his thighs and he cries, over-sensitized and over-fucked, screaming once more as Merle presses in deep and stills inside him, spilling his hot load all over Daryl’s insides.

 

Merle grunts and pulls away, wiping himself on the edge of the blanket, Daryl’s hands reaching out towards him, trying to get and grip and failing, collapsing back, _exhausted,_ on the bed. Merle stomps out of the tent without a word.

 

*

 

The thing is, Merle wanted to be sweet, and kind, and gentle with his brother, but he knows he ain’t got none of that left in him. Whatever sweetness he had died with his mother, and then the remainder was whipped out of him by his father, then the army, then prison… there wasn’t any left.

 

And besides, he was _angry_. Where did Daryl get off thinkin’ it’s alright to treat a man like that? Like you know a damn thing about him? And Daryl, sweet, _naïve_ baby brother, he didn’t know how _harsh_ real life was. _He_ was mama’s favorite _, he_ didn’t get smacked around by their daddy. _He_ didn’t have people staring at him everywhere he go, thinking he was a fuck-up, a junkie, a loser, a freak. _He_ didn’t go to prison. _He_ didn’t know. He didn’t know a damn thing.

 

*

 

The first time Daryl Dixon sees a dead body, his first thoughts are, in order: 1. where did it come from? 2. how long has it been here? and 3. _will I go to jail for this?_

 

The third of his thoughts overrides the first two immediately, and he scrambles to look around for somewhere to hide the thing, rather than calling the sheriff, or getting help, or anything a reasonable person would do because he’s not in the habit of giving the cops any more reason to beat the shit out of him. His family has a permanent red mark in their file thanks to Merle’s antics, so the cops are all too eager to take in the little brother and the dad any time they see fit, and their reputation sees fit there will be no questions asked.

 

Last time the sheriff came around, when Daryl was about 18, the cops were trying to hit up his father with accusations of – of all things – _growing pot_. Daryl didn’t know how to break it to them that his daddy was too stupid to operate a garden hose, and when he was _sober,_ but he kept his mouth shut except to ask the cops if they had a warrant to be there, just like Merle taught him, and shoved the bag of weed his big brother’d been keeping in the kitchen drawer into the hole in the underside of his mattress.

 

Needless to say, Daryl does not call the cops after that first encounter. He looked around the area for any sort of weapon, too scared-shitless to look and see what the poor fool died from, and too afraid to touch the body besides, much less examine it for wounds like he would an animal carcass – and then left the body, and didn’t tell anyone about it. As far as he knows, it was never discovered out there, and it faded from his mind like just another insignificant memory.

 

The second time he sees a dead body, that sort of sheer panic over being caught and thrown in jail is still there, still with a feeling of dread in the pit of his stomach, bile coming to the back of his throat; but those worries vanish quickly to be replaced with a sheer, inhuman terror as the body _comes back to life_.

 

The body looks like it’s a man around his brother’s age, probably dead in a hunting accident, or chased out into the woods is more likely, given the fact he’s got no gear. Daryl scans the area to make sure no one’s looking and then sticks his hands in the pockets of the man’s utility vest, coming away empty-handed.

 

Then, the body reaches out and snatches his arm. Daryl shrieks and falls backward before he can even think, as the body, half-rotten and yellow eyes glowing, sits up and starts to crawl over to him. Panicking, Daryl scrambles in his pocket for his knife and stabs it into the man’s wrist. The man-corpse- _whatever_ it is growls and splutters in pain, the sound inhuman, airy and grating, like the stutter of a rusty engine.

 

The corpse reaches out with its other arm, still trying to attack and Daryl gasps and lunges forward, both hands on the hilt of the knife, and plunges it straight into his chest. The knife disappears between the ribs with a wet sound but the body _keeps moving_ , hands waving wildly, trying to grab at Daryl’s shirt, his hair, teeth gnashing, spitting, fingers clawing at Daryl’s shoulders. He wrenches the knife out of its chest and slams it down hard in the man’s forehead, heart hammering as it finally, blessedly goes still.

 

Daryl’s wrists ache from the force and his breath is coming out in harsh, panting gasps as he pulls the knife loose, falling back on his haunches. The body doesn’t give so much as a twitch, and Daryl kicks it in the ribs just to make sure. It’s really dead, then, Daryl thinks, but isn’t willing to wait around to be proven wrong.

 

He gets to his feet, scrambling to get his crossbow over his shoulder and then runs, runs non-stop until he’s back at camp, screaming out his brother’s name.

 

There’s no sign of his brother when he gets there, but in his place are about a dozen walking corpses. He runs before they see him, down the road dirt road towards where they turned off the freeway, and finds Merle, out of breath, running in the opposite direction.

 

“Merle!” Daryl calls out and dashes forward, “our camp—!”

 

“You seen them too?” Merle asks, out of breath. He’s gripping a small hatchet and there’s blood splattered all up his arm. “Shit. I was hopin’ I was tripping serious balls out here.”

 

“What are they?!” Daryl’s voice cracks and he wipes the sweat from his brow, looking frightfully around. The one back there clearly wanted to kill him, no doubt about it. If the others were like that too, then, he didn’t want to imagine what it would be like to face a whole dozen blood-thirsty, nearly unkillable freaks following them down the road.

 

“I dunno, brother, but we gotta get outta here,” Merle says, immediately turning army-sergeant, issuing orders with each chop of his hand, “I’m gonna go back to camp and try to rush the truck, you stay a few yards behind and cover my ass with that crossbow of yours,” he commands, nodding his head, looking at Daryl severely.

 

Daryl nods in answer, then jumps forward to kiss his brother, knowing well this may be the last time they ever see each other alive, but Merle shoves him off with an arm on his chest.

 

“Lemme make this clear, we’re going together, but this shit—” Merle growls, gesturing broadly between the two of them, “has got to stop.”

 

“What’s gotta stop?” Daryl asks, panting.

 

“You _know_ what!” Merle shouts, “the kissing, the fucking! I ain’t gonna have you trailing after me like some pussy-ass schoolgirl, it ain’t right!”

 

Daryl shakes his head, “I don’t care what other people think! They’re sheep, they’re pussies don’t got no thoughts of their own, they can call me queer all they want, I don’t care ’bout it! And I know _you_ don’t care what other people think, neither, so what’s the problem?!”

 

“It’s no good!” Merle clenches his fists. His arms are shaking all the way up, he looks like a tortured bull, trembling to get at its tormentor.

 

“What’s _‘no good’_?!” Daryl shouts back, stomping the heel of his boot into the ground, tearing up the peat.

 

“Me!!” Merle screams, finally, voice cracking on the single, strained syllable.

 

Daryl goes quiet, and Merle rears up his head like an angered lion, taking two long strides into Daryl’s space. “You get it? I ain’t no good for you. Ain’t got no education, tried school, they didn’t want me, I left! Couldn’t do it!”

 

Daryl’s mouth is a thin line, an unbroken seam. He keeps Merle’s gaze, locked steadfast, blue eyes glinting with something heavy.

 

“Couldn’t get no job, fucked up everything I tried,” Merle continues, waving his arms emphatically, splashing blood off the hatchet onto Daryl’s shirt, “then I joined the army, they didn’t want me neither!!

 

“Do you know how hard that—and I _tried_ , man, the first time I ever tried an’thing in my whole life and they…”

Merle bites down on his bottom lip, an unreadable mix of shame and rage and sadness on his sallow face, slowly lifting his gaze back to Daryl’s.

 

“This!” Merle gestures at the hatchet, waving it around, his bloody knuckles white around the handle, “ _this_ is what I’m good for. Hackin’ and slashin’ and bruisin’. This is what I can do.” _Ain’t no tenderness in me._ “I ain’t no good to _anyone_ , not like that, Daryl. Ain’t no good.”

 

Daryl bites down on his lip, force of habit, tears welling up in his eyes. “You’re good for _me_.”

 

Merle doesn’t answer, for once, miserably speechless.  He raised Daryl up good, made him strong, taught him to think and talk for himself, say what he means and don’t care where it gets him. His baby brother is smart, resourceful, and ain’t nothin’ he got he ain’t earned through hard work. But somewhere along the line, Merle screwed up. He screwed up royally, and torn a hole that ain’t never gonna be repaired or covered. He can see it in the web strung delicately between them, tangled and messy, thin and strangling.

 

Merle lifts his arms, Daryl walks into them. He presses himself against Merle’s chest and cries into his shoulder, wet, sloppy tears down his nose and into the fabric of Merle’s shirt. His big brother pats him on the back, wrapping an arm around his shoulder, securing him.

 

“Ain’t got no mama, no daddy,” Daryl mumbles into his brother’s skin, breath scouring tattoos that will never fade, “ain’t got no one but you. That’s all I want. That’s good enough for me.”

 

Naw, Merle thinks sadly, little brother don’t know a damn thing. Nothing will _ever_ be good enough for Merle’s little brother.

 

*

 

They wander, they scramble, they fight, they fuck. Daryl rides his brother’s cock in their tent, always insisting on keeping his shirt on, or if he takes it off, he has to be lying on his back. Merle doesn’t think much of it, just suspects he’s not willing to put his back to anyone, just like Merle taught him. ’Sides, Merle hardly takes his pants off, so he figures it’s a fair deal. They fuck quick and rough, or slow and dangerous. Daryl’s noisy as Hell, screamin’ and moanin’ for everyone to hear, loud enough to draw walkers, Merle worries sometimes, and plants his hand over Daryl’s mouth, muffling his cries as he bucks and groans and comes.

 

After they finish, Merle always leaves the bed, goes to wash up somewhere else, trying to stave off the feeling of regret for as long as possible after orgasm. Daryl takes a cigarette, lying on his back with an arm behind his head, watching the smoke swirl around above him in the tent.

 

They wander, and run, and race towards the city when the broadcasts start. Atlanta feels like a mistake, and the fire-bombings make it a clear choice. They stay outside the city, moving towards the old quarry, and come up hard against a group of people who wanna set up camp there.

 

Merle’s ready to fight them all off if he has to, or jump them all when they’re sleeping and run, but their leader doesn’t put up a fight about letting them join the group. Shane, the wild-eyed son’bitch doesn’t even make a fuss about who the brothers are or where they’re from, just tells ’em to pull their weight and don’t start no trouble. It reminds Merle of the army, and Shane even reminds him of that colonel bastard whose teeth he knocked out all them years ago. But the man doesn’t tell him or his brother what to do, so Merle keeps his patience.

 

He and Daryl make their camp a good distance away from the rest of ’em, far enough away they don’t gotta play “house” with a bunch of old ladies and niggers and beaners. Far enough away they can make like they’re still on their never-ending hunting trip. Far enough away no one can hear the cries and whines and moans he coaxes out of his baby brother in the thick of night.

 

One night, he and his brother hatch a plan to rob the camp and hightail it outta there. Daryl’s getting too complacent with these people, too quick to help out with their petty shit and too quick to share his food with ’em. It’s not safe to rely on other people, _especially_ with the way the world is these days.

 

The next day, Merle volunteers to head with a small group into the city for supplies, which Merle hopes to take his fair share of. He can handle a gun and he’s more well-suited to surviving in a warzone than any of the other miserable sons’a’bitches around, so no one complains – at least out loud.

 

*

 

The Merle and Daryl who find each other again are strangers to each other. Merle barely recognizes his brother, all reserved and stoic, voice quiet and low – barely even puts up a fight when Merle makes jabs at him. He’s lost his fire, ain’t no one else can see it but Merle, they might think he’s chilled out and lost his bite, but it’s a lot more than that. There ain’t no spark left in him, or what is left is covered by layers and layers of guilt and loss and sadness Merle don’t even wanna think about. He _knew_ letting his brother get attached would bring him nothing but pain.

 

Seeing the scars on his back was like being doused with cold water. It was like he’d been seeing everything through funhouse goggles, and just now seeing things in their true light. It was like being hit in the face. In fact, he’d wished Daryl hit him in the face. It woulda hurt a lot less.

 

To Daryl, Merle looks like a pumped-up version of his former self, a tiny, weak, broken man bigging himself up, like a performer on stilts. He spits insults at everyone and then acts like they’re all against him for no good reason, when he’s the one made himself the enemy.

 

They dance around each other for the first few days, neither one wanting to make the first move, ain’t even ’til the prison Daryl is willing to let his guard down enough to _talk_ to his brother.

 

Being in the prison brings up all sorts of sick feelings; Merle feels like he’s walking on embers all the damn time, he can’t sit still, can’t sleep. He’s surrounded by people but he’s totally alone, no one will talk to him or even _listen_ to what he has to say, no one but Officer Rick, who treats him like he’s his perpetually-disappointed daddy. He might as well be a ghost, floating in his cell, hovering over the blood and puke and piss-stained cement floor, the spirit of stories all passed.

 

Daryl shuffles up to the bars late at night, crossbow catching the light but lowered flaccidly at the ground.

 

“Ain’t you got anything to say for yourself?” Daryl asks, coldly. His eyes are silver in the moonlight, narrow and pointed like blades.

 

“Whatcha want me t’ say? Merle raises his hands – well, one of them forms the gesture he intended – as if to say he’s got no answers left.

 

“Maybe an apology, for one? What you did to Glenn and Maggie, it wa’nt right,” Daryl says with an admonishing shake of his head. His brother never did waste words, leaving plenty of room for Merle to do the opposite.

 

“I did what I had to to _survive_ , brother,” Merle hisses, “I ain’t apologizing for that.” He knew The Governor’d sooner kill him than look at him if he showed even a hint of mercy, even if he’d been so inclined to _not_ beat the Hell outta one of the folks who was oh-so-complacent on leaving him up on that roof.

 

Daryl shakes his head, his eyes going to the floor, crossbow limp in his hands. “The Merle I knew wouldn’t done that. He woulda told that Governor where he can stick his little _job_ , ’stead of living in luxury as an old man’s bitch. And you were callin’ me out for bein’ an errand boy?” He sighs.

 

Merle reaches for the bars of the cell with one calloused, scarred-up hand, clenching his fingers around the cold steel. “Ain’t nothin’ wrong with doin’ what you need to to survive. Whaddyou want me t’ tell you, huh? That I spent every night tossin’ an’ turnin’, wracked with guilt over what I done?” Merle implores, his face an inch away from the bars, “’Cause that ain’t what I was thinkin’ ’bout at night.”

 

Daryl looks up, and his expression is neutral and dark. He looks more like an army scout than a survivor.

 

“I was thinkin’ about findin’ my way back to you,” Merle admits, “every day I thought about it. I had no idea if you were alive, or dead, or bit, but you were out there, and _so far away_ from me I couldn’t stand it, y’hear?” he hisses into the space between the bars. “I ain’t gonna sweet-talk you and I ain’t gonna lie, and I sure as _Hell_ ain’t suckin’ up to Rick, but I wanna stay here; every minute I’m locked up here _with_ you, is a hunderd’ times better than the time I spent away from you.”

 

Daryl looks at Merle like he hasn’t for years, like the sun shines out of his eyes and the world revolves around his axis. Merle almost regrets being so open, cursing and ducking his head, rubbing a hand across the back of his skull. He mumbles something, too low for Daryl to hear, and he leans in closer with a confused look.

 

“Still good enough for ya?” Merle says softly, rolling his eyes off to the side as if he doesn’t want to see the answer. Maybe he doesn’t.

 

“Yeah,” Daryl whispers, leaning his head into the bars so that he and his brother can put their foreheads together.

 

They stay like that for a long time, long enough that Merle can just watch and see the expressions that go across Daryl’s face: first a smile, small and significant, then the tears he spills out onto the floor, hoping no one will see, then a frown, and a smile again, gentle and beaming, lips quirked up sideways in that crooked, adorable way that makes Merle grin just a little himself.

 

Daryl pulls away after a long minute, looks around to make sure no one is watching, then takes the keys off of his belt and sticks one into the lock on the cell door. The tumblers click into place and Daryl takes the key very gingerly, quietly, desperate not to make a sound.

 

Merle pulls open the door with his good hand enough to let his brother through.

 

“Well, go on then,” Merle says, and the smile that lights up his brother’s face is worth all the suffering in the world. Daryl walks inside.


End file.
